It’s Friday, which means movie night, which means dinner that can be eaten in the sofa. Ingrid is cooking us a beetroot risotto.

We got some rain today (most welcome) and that brought out the snails.

I tried to photograph them, but it was harder than expected. Slow as a snail, they say, but they moved fast enough to make it hard to catch a photo of them from a good angle before they moved under a leaf or into a gap between stones. And so easy to disturb! Even just removing a blade of grass that was blocking my view made them pull in their tentacles.

The new kitchen cabinets are now all in place, with handles and recessed lighting and everything.

Still missing: countertop, sink and tap, electrical outlets, wall tile, floor.

It’s the last day of the school year, and the last day ever at this school for Ingrid. As a graduating grade 6 student she finally gets to sit on a chair (while the younger kids all sit on blankets etc on the ground), and she gets a rose from the one of the kids in grade 0.

I still remember when she was in grade 0 and sitting at the very front, and how handing a rose to one of the big kids was a big thing. And how old the grade 6 kids looked to me then!

Afterwards we had our traditioal conveyor belt sushi lunch at Zan in Kista. Ingrid is working on her chopstick skills: she has learned an odd grip, with the chopsticks crossed, and is now trying to unlearn it to get a better… um… grip on whatever she’s trying to grab. With slippery metal chopsticks and slippery, hard watermelon pieces, it’s quite a challenge.

The garden still has two large bare patches from when the water pipe was replaced. One from replacing the water pipe, and one from removing a concrete sewer access thing that stood in the middle of the front quarter of the garden. I’d started to plant bushes around that lump of concrete to try and hide and camouflage it. The idea of removing it had never occurred to me. But when the digger was here anyway, the workmen asked if I would like to be rid of the sewer access, and my answer was an immediate yes.

At first I was just going to sow grass in its place. I don’t know what I was thinking! this prime location, where the soil has now also been thoroughly tilled so it is easy to work with, deserves better than grass. Why would I want more grass in my garden, anyway?

I planted a witch hazel bush and some ferns and Epimediums, among other things. Given some time I hope this planting will grow into one whole with the hedge next to it.

Eric is playing something exciting (Destiny 2, I believe) and Adrian is sharing the excitement.

In the background the room is a messy pile of boxes with stuff from the kitchen, as well as things that didn’t fit in the laundry room any more since part of the kitchen moved there. I’m looking forward to getting some space here again.

The grass in the garden is getting kind of high. I guess it might be time to do some mowing, even though I don’t much like the look of short grass.

I gather that it should be possible to convert this “lawn” into a meadow by simply removing grass, to gradually lower soil fertility. So this year I will remove the grass after mowing.

Eric’s niece just graduated from high school and had a party today to celebrate.

It’s national day and I had vaguely thought we might go somewhere and do something national day-ish, but the heat is such that I have no energy for anything like that. Instead we had a picnic in the garden, in the shade of the cherry tree, with the most cooling food we could come up with – a strawberry and melon pasta salad and iced elderberry cordial.

tretton37 summer party at Skansen.

The kids took the train to town together and met up with me at the office. We then took the tram to Skansen. (Eric had a restful evening at home instead.)

We had time for a brief walk around Skansen before it was time for the party itself. It was closing time and the whole place was empty. I liked Skansen this way, without all the crowds.

Then we had summery drinks in the sun, and a buffet dinner, and ninja masks and ninja making kits and ninja tattoos.